1. Field of Invention
The present disclosure relates generally to the field of asset identification and management, and more particularly to methods and systems for identifying and managing equipment having transponders attached to the power cords thereof.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Data centers may contain thousands of physical information technology (IT) assets (e.g., servers, switches) deployed and maintained across large installation sites, including data centers and electrical equipment rooms. Many installation sites have assets that are regularly added and removed for maintenance, replacement and/or upgrade purposes. In many regions, legal and regulatory requirements, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the United States, require accurate inventory tracking of IT assets. Traditionally, this has entailed the onerous task of taking physical inventory of each piece of IT equipment on at least a regular basis. Many solutions to this task have been developed, including attaching bar code tags or RFID tags to each asset and reading the tags for inventory purposes either at an entry/exit point to the data center space, or via handheld or rack-mounted tag readers. These solutions are limited to reading tags in a local environment by personnel authorized to access the equipment.
Additionally, many installation sites use switched rack power distribution units (PDUs) to provide individual control of electrical outlets for managing the power requirements of installed IT assets. Using existing techniques, users typically keep manual records or manually enter equipment associations (i.e., associating a specific IT asset with a specific PDU outlet) to utilize the management functions of the PDUs. These techniques are subject to entry errors or obsolete information when equipment is moved and the records are not promptly updated.
In a former approach, RFID tags or manual methods (i.e., bar coding or manually recording tag numbers) are used to inventory physical assets. Using existing RFID techniques, an accurate inventory may be established. However, these techniques do not associate physical assets with power connectivity (i.e., the outlet, branch circuit, PDU, or UPS that feeds power to the device), and in some cases, the physical rack location of the asset cannot be identified using the tag information alone. Further, when new assets are added to switched rack PDUs, users must manually associate the physical asset with the electrical outlet(s) feeding each device to establish a connectivity map (or power path) for power control. If device(s) are moved to other electrical outlets or physical locations, the user must manually update the power associations in the rack PDU(s) to ensure the equipment is associated with the new power feed path. The existing methods are subject to human error including potential consequences such as accidentally removing power, circuit overloading, and other undesirable events.